Extra Credits

Extra Credits is a weekly feature on the Escapist and it is regularly brilliant. Produced by industry veterans James Portnow, Daniel Floyd and Allison Theus, it is a show about the potential for video games as an art form. It regularly impresses me and I strongly recommend it as not only a show for gamers, but also as an example of how to do critical analysis right.

Why am I telling you to go to another site to hear them talk about a video games as art instead of writing about it myself? Because they are very good at what they do. They are the only group of which I am aware that is publicly discussing video gaming as an art form in a mature, informed and accessible way. They discuss how the medium is evolving, how it can be informed by other media, and what can be learned from it. They also advocate for new approaches to creating games and evaluating the methods for creating good games and expanding the breadth of material covered by them.

These three are clearly biased. They love games and believe in their potential as an art form. However, their analysis is impressively neutral. They are able to examine issues from multiple perspectives. They consider the complex interactions between social, economic and technological factors. They drift occasionally into idealistic rambles, but they typically pull themselves back with an intelligent discussion of the realities of the industry. Overall, advocates in general could learn a lot from these guys.

I’ve included a link to their first video as a good reference. Go. Watch. Learn. Engage.

Ryan

Ryan Consell is a skeptical artist, tap-dancing armorer, juggling scientist, rock-climbing writer, sword-fighting math teacher, uni-cycling gamer, fire-spinning academic and devout nerd. He has a Masters in Applied science, most of a bachelors in Fine Arts, and a very short attention span. He is the author of How Not to Poach a Unicorn and half of the masochistic comedy duo that is Creative Dissonance. Follow him on Twitter @StudentofWhim

1 Comment

I love that show! Such an uplifting experience every week, with a really hopeful outlook. Very glad to see the games/skepticism meeting- soon all of my personal interests will be merging with each other just for my benefit MWAHAHAHA! Hell, I’m already going to Dragon*Con so I’m halfway there. Anyway, everyone go and watch extra credits, It’s awesome.